The executive board and supervisory board propose to the shareholders’ meeting that the net profit for 2022 of 1,172,000.56 euros be added to the profit carried forward as of 01/01/2022 of 6,307,940.55 euros to produce a balance sheet profit of 7,479,941.11 euros and be carried forward to the next accounting period.
In addition to its core business, dpa operates a large number of business units and new business areas in independent subsidiaries. Due to the chosen structure, dpa’s earnings are highly dependent on the economic development and the associated earnings contributions of the subsidiaries, which are generally affiliated via profit and loss transfer agreements, as well as other shareholdings. In 2022, they once again generated high net income for the year and delivered an overall earnings contribution of 18.7 million euros, which was only marginally lower than the previous year’s figure of 18.8 million euros.
Under the existing profit and loss transfer agreement, news aktuell GmbH contributed the largest single sum to the dpa group’s success, at 10.1 million euros. The increase in the annual result was positively influenced in equal measure by the performance of the two core business areas, ots and zimpel, but also by strict cost management and still existing pandemic-related savings effects.
In 2022, dpa Picture-Alliance GmbH once again succeeded in achieving an increase in sales in the highly competitive image market as well as a decent operating result, which at 2.1 million euros was even slightly higher than in the previous year. However, at 1.4 million euros, the annual result was significantly lower than in the previous year, as the tax audit last year resulted in a sales tax risk with regard to the prosecution of rights, for which a corresponding provision was recognised in the annual financial statement as a precautionary measure.
The photo agency Zentralbild GmbH was transferred to the dpa parent company in the course of a merger in 2022, where it was integrated into the Secondary Sales image profit centre with retroactive effect from 01/01/2022.
As expected, the graphics subsidiary dpa-infografik GmbH was not quite able to maintain the sales level of the previous year in a persistently difficult market and also remained slightly below the previous year’s figure with a result of 0.1 million euros rounded off.
dpa-infocom GmbH succeeded in increasing the already very good earnings level of the previous year once again in 2022 fiscal year and, driven primarily by its own product innovations in the area of data products and fact checks, but also through the acquisition of a major customer in the new product field of curation, achieved an annual profit of 4.3 million euros.
The service company dpa-IT Services GmbH closed the fiscal year at a slightly higher level than in the previous year by expanding its business volume, while Rufa Rundfunk-Agenturdienste GmbH and English Services GmbH closed at roughly the same level. dpa-IT was mainly influenced by the bundling of activities of the dpa group and the takeover of the corresponding employees of other group subsidiaries, while Rufa and English Services were mainly characterised by a continuation of business activities at almost the same cost level.
In the middle of last year, dpa founded UseTheNews gGmbH, which began its non-profit business activities to promote news literacy among young people on 01/07/2022. In the first six months of its activities, this new subsidiary posted a start-up loss of 19,000 euros.
Despite a difficult market environment, dpa-AFX Wirtschaftsnachrichten GmbH, in which dpa holds a 76% stake, succeeded in slightly increasing its revenues to 5.0 million euros in the past year, while also improving on the previous year’s profit to over 0.7 million euros.
mecom Medien-Communikations-Gesellschaft mbH (50% direct dpa holding and 10% indirect holding) again recorded a significant increase in sales, especially in the growth area of protected networks. On the one hand, there was an increase in revenues from the project business, but fortunately there was also an increase in more sustainable operating revenues. In conjunction with tight project and cost management, mecom achieved a net profit for the year of over 1.9 million euros, once again setting a new record compared with previous years.
The two holdings in Switzerland, awp Finanznachrichten AG (50% dpa holding) and news aktuell (Schweiz) AG (100% news aktuell GmbH holding), again performed very positively in 2022.
Although awp felt the effects of the changes observed in the Swiss financial sector, it once again succeeded in closing the year with revenue growth and a profit of 1.8 million Swiss francs, which was on a par with the previous year.
news aktuell (Schweiz) AG, on the other hand, suffered a small decline in sales of 0.1 million Swiss francs, but was able to maintain the previous year’s result due to cost reductions, particularly in procurement expenses, and once again generated a surplus of 0.7 million Swiss francs.